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A mere 5 months after SOPA and PIPA met their very public demise, a new intellectual property enforcement bill is on the fast track through the House Judiciary Committee. The bill, which was largely secret until a day before it was scheduled to be marked up, is an attempt to revive an idea that was killed as part of SOPA earlier this year. In addition to being a surprising attempt to develop intellectual property (IP) legislation in secret again, it highlights a phenomenal waste of taxpayer resources. After all, what is going to improve our copyright system more: international IP attaches or being able to look up who actually owns a copyright?

Secret Bills Are a NonstarterBefore getting to the substance of the bill, perhaps the most shocking thing about it is how it is being handled by Committee Chairman Smith (who was a driving force behind SOPA). If Congress learned no other lesson from SOPA and PIPA, you would think that they got the message about not developing IP-related laws in secret. But you would be wrong. This bill leaked, fully formed, over the weekend and was scheduled for markup today. Needless to say, this came as a surprise to just about everyone not directly involved with drafting it and provided a very limited opportunity to meaningfully participate in the markup process. Step zero for any new IP bill should be a transparent drafting process.

And remember, we still do not have anything approaching an Office of Innovation.

Cost Effective Ways to Improve CopyrightThe real embarrassment here is that this entire debate is playing out while the Copyright Office is desperately trying to modernize our system for registering and tracking who actually owns copyrights. Today, there is no way to electronically search the Copyright Officeâ€™s records for works registered before 1978 (some of which will still be protected by copyright in 2070). In order to search those records you have to pay the Copyright Office $165/hour (2 hour minimum). Additionally, the electronic registration process for new works has a months-long processing backlog. As a result, only a tiny fraction of copyrights that are actually registered are easily searchable by the public. This means that it is hard to find rightsholders in order to license their work or pay them for use.

And for most things the Copyright Office does not take credit cards - check or money order only.

These shortcomings are only the tip of the iceberg.

If we were serious about making the copyright system work better, step one should be to make sure that there is any easy way to figure out who actually owns what. After all, it is hard to pay a creator if you canâ€™t find them. But instead, Rep. Smith decided to prioritize a secret bill to send government officials hither and yon in search of, well, something

« Last Edit: July 12, 2012, 04:45:52 AM by IainB; Reason: Subject edited to include more *IP* \"acronyms\". »

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday July 10, @04:30PMfrom the will-be-hard-to-blackout-the-internet-every-other-week dept.

bricko sends this disappointing but not unexpected news from Techdirt:

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"While it didn't get nearly as much attention as other parts of SOPA, one section in the bill that greatly concerned us was the massive expansion of the diplomatic corp.'s 'IP attaches.' If you're unfamiliar with the program, basically IP attaches are 'diplomats' (and I use the term loosely) who go around the globe pushing a copyright maximalist position on pretty much every other country. Their role is not to support more effective or more reasonable IP policy. It is solely to increase expansion, and basically act as Hollywood's personal thugs pressuring other countries to do the will of the major studios and labels. The role is literally defined as pushing for 'aggressive support for enforcement action' throughout the world. ... In other words, these people are not neutral. They do not have the best interests of the public or the country in mind. Their job is solely to push the copyright maximalist views of the legacy entertainment industry around the globe, and position it as the will of the U.S. government. It was good that this was defeated as a part of SOPA... but now comes the news that Lamar Smith is introducing a new bill that not only brings back this part, but appears to expand it and make it an even bigger deal."

When the Internet is in danger, the cat signal will appear.Internet Defense League

You've heard of the bat signalâ€”now get ready for the cat signal. A diverse crew of Internet businesses, advocacy groups, and lawmakers has banded together to create something called the Internet Defense League. The organization seeks to save the 'Net from bad laws like SOPA. And a cat signalâ€”modeled after the signal used to rouse Batman each time Gotham City is threatenedâ€”is what the group will use to alert the world when it's protest time.

When the SOPA blackout day helped convince Congress that the Stop Online Piracy Act was a bad idea that would threaten Internet freedom, it showed how democracy can be used in the digital age to preserve the interests of people above the interests of corporations lining the pockets of politicians. But can the Internet rally to save itself each time it's threatened?

Enter the cat signal. A piece of code supporters of the Internet Defense League can embed in their websites, the presence of the cat signal will tell you another bad law threatening Internet freedom is making the rounds, and that it's time to call your local member of Congress. The cat signal is also being broadcast today on sites like Fight For the Future to announce the Internet Defense League's creation:[Image]

Yes, the signal was inspired by all those funny cat pictures on the likes of reddit and I Can Haz Cheezburger (two of the founding members of the Internet Defense League). But the League has prominent members who take Internet regulation very seriously.

"I recently gave a talk about being Batman or being Batwoman for your respective Gotham," said Alexis Ohanian, cofounder of reddit (a sister company of Ars). "This is like a call to arms for all the people who are creating something online. Whether they have a Twitter account with 20 followers, or they have a website with 35 million visitors, they all have a Gotham, so to speak, to protect. They all have a community they want to keep strong."

Internet Defense League founders said spotlights will be used to project actual cat signals into the sky today at live kick-off events in New York City, San Francisco, Washington DC, and Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. But the cat signal will more importantly be a digital signal that can be planted on websites to protest future attempts to censor the Internet.

"This digital signal is a critical component of how IDL works; it's code that lets any website or individual broadcast messages to their personal networks in an 'emergency alert system,'" the group said in its announcement. "When the Internet's in danger and we need millions of people to act, the League will ask its members to broadcast an action. (Say, a prominent message asking everyone to call their elected leaders). With the combined reach of our websites and social networks, we can be massively more effective than any one organization."

reddit is just one of many members in the Internet Defense League. It also includes a Tea Party activist, Mozilla, WordPress, Fark, Imgur, Tor, BoingBoing, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, advocacy groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Marietje Schaake, a Dutch member of the European Parliament (which recently rejected the AntiCounterfeiting Trade Agreement). Congressmen including US Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), US Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS), and US Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) are also on board.

Ohanian and several other members got the word out about the Internet Defense League this morning in a somewhat chaotic conference call with reporters. (Imagine lots of noisy people not on mute and everyone trying to speak over everyone else because there's no established order for reporters to ask questions).

Moran said he wasn't necessarily expecting Internet freedom fighters to win the war against SOPA, but thought the battle was worth fighting anyway. The protest's ultimate success was gratifying, and helped preserve the abilities of businesses to innovate by using the Internet, he said.

"We have patted each other on the back and congratulated each other for that success, but I would say these battles, including the ones specifically related to SOPA and PIPA, are not behind us," Moran said. "And Congress has the habit of doing things without much forethought, without understanding these issues, particularly these tech issues, are ones many members of Congress don't have a complete understanding of. I thinkâ€¦ individuals with expertise, knowledge, and a passion for the Internet have a great role to play in making certain the policies developed by Congress are ones that are advantageous to the Internet, and from my perspective advantageous to innovation."

Mozilla Foundation Executive Director Mark Surman said the scale of the Internet makes it possibleâ€”for the first time in human historyâ€”for anyone to publish anything, speak to anyone, or start a business without permission from someone else, and that right needs to be preserved. "We've made a huge bet on the Internet," Surman said, calling the Internet Defense League "a group of creative people who are excited about what the Internet can be as an open system."

Mark Meckler, co-founder and former national coordinator of the Tea Party Patriots, said the Internet Defense League's nonpartisan, people-centered approach is ideal for protecting the Internet from the tendency of politicians to over-regulate. "The Internet is not the problem. The Internet is the solution, so the Internet Defense League is here to help be the solution and prevent government from intruding on that which has the chance to save society," Meckler said.

The Internet Defense League has the code ready for download. But there are questions about just how it will work in practice, such as who decides when to broadcast the cat signal, and how the decision made. Group leaders didn't present a specific method, but said it will be modeled on the way things become memes or viral on the Internet.

Just how to measure "viralness" hasn't been determined. But group members will hold discussions amongst themselves, and pay attention to what's happening on the Web at large. For example, if posts about a bill on Internet issues make it to the front page of reddit ten times in a row, there's a good chance the Internet Defense League would take a look and see if it's worthy of action.

One threat being monitored by group members is the Senate version of CISPA (the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act). One reporter asked if net neutrality is on the agenda, but no specific commitments were made.

There's always the possibility that not every member of the group will agree that a certain threat is actually a threat. While the cat signal code can be automatically triggered, members can also choose to turn it on a case-by-case basis, deciding for themselves which events are actually worth protesting.

Copy of email from info@demandprogress.org Re: Cyber-security:(If anyone reading this is keen to have their voice heard on this subject, then please register with demandprogress.org, then you can be kept informed directly.)

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The Senate version of CISPA looks like it'll be voted on later THIS WEEK. We need senators to OPPOSE the bill, but SUPPORT pro-privacy amendments to it.

But let's highlight some good news: Our efforts to secure Internet freedom and privacy protections have largely worked -- and frankly, far better than we'd expected. Provisions have been added to:

Keep the data in the hands of civilian agencies (as opposed to the National Security Agency); Restrict the government's use of the information to cyber security issues and the prevention of immediate physical harm; Require annual reporting on the data's use; Let Americans sue the government for abuse; and A clandestine attack on Net Neutrality has been removed.

And then use these links to share the image at right, so everybody knows how urgent this effort is:[fb] If you're already on Facebook, click here to share with your friends.[fb] If you're already on Twitter, click here to tweet about the campaign: Tweet

As a timely reminder and example - if we needed one - as to why this subject is important to Internet users in the so-called "Free World", there is this post at Mashable: How Iran Silences Its Citizens on the WebIt's all about totalitarian Fascism and the negation of freedom and liberty. Read the full post at the link.Therefore, the general objectives of the exercise would seem to be (as far Internet users in the so-called "Free World" are concerned):

(a) to protect themselves from any and all government-driven statutory changes/initiatives to increase "cyber-security", implement DRM, copyright and expansion of same, reduce piracy, increase censorship or other means that would effectively lead to controls to govern, regulate or otherwise restrict the freedoms of use of the Internet.

(b) to protect themselves from corporate lobby-driven statutory changes/initiatives to increase "cyber-security", implement DRM, copyright and expansion of same, reduce piracy, increase censorship or other means that would effectively lead to controls to govern, regulate or otherwise restrict the freedoms of use of the Internet.

(c) to seek to change the arguably corrupt status quo where corporate lobbies have a stronger voice and a greater say in forming legislation that works towards their commercial/monopolistic advantage and against the interests of the people in general.

This Iranian situation is an example of one of many countries where a totalitarian Fascist regime prevails. The simple truth is that if a free people wish to avoid incremental moves in the same direction ("coming soon to a State near you"), then they will need to be vigilant and fight those people and their artefacts (statutes) that would take us there (QED).

In the case of Internet fredoms, the Mashable article finishes with this: (my emphasis)

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...People who work in the tech space in Iran acutely feel the threats posed by this environment. Take for instance the horror confronted by Saeed Malekpour, a Canadian-Iranian facing the death penalty because a file-sharing program he developed was used to upload pornography to the web. His innocuous programming is considered a crime because software developers can be held liable if consumers â€śinappropriatelyâ€ť use their products.

Being active online today in Iran is fraught with risks that most readers living in democratic societies cannot imagine. This may be the most important reason for world leaders and diplomatic representatives of the free world to put digital freedom on the agenda. Only with sustained pressure can Iranâ€™s netizens get the tools they need to fight for a better future.

SOPA/PIPA Wakes Up Internet Giants To Realize They Need To Be More Engaged In DCfrom the unfortunate-reality dept

Earlier today it was announced that a new industry trade association representing large internet companies, called The Internet Association, is going to be launching this fall, with Google, Amazon, eBay and Facebook as the charter members. Part of the thinking behind this group stemmed from the realization of how little influence various internet companies had in DC when SOPA/PIPA came along last year -- and a concerted effort to change that.

Former Congressional staffer Michael Beckerman was officially named this morning as the organization's president. I got to meet with Beckerman last week and hear some of the details about the group. To be honest, I have very mixed feelings about all of this. I tend to believe that this group will be a force for good in supporting an open internet and related issues. Beckerman was quite frank about why this new group absolutely needs to be focused on supporting the views of the public (because unlike in some other industries, when an internet company diverges from the public interest, it's very easy for its users/customers to go elsewhere). One of the major concerns we discussed was where the interests of internet users and the large internet companies might diverge, and how this organization would deal with those situations. He was pretty adamant that if they're not doing a good job representing the public's interest as well, then the organization isn't doing its job. Hopefully that is true, but obviously it's a claim that deserves close scrutiny as this organization ramps up. Hopefully, Beckerman will model the organization on the success of organizations like CEA, who have built up a very strong reputation in recognizing that by fighting to protect consumers they do the best in the long run for the electronics companies they represent. CEA has a long history of putting consumers first on various issues (even when you could make the argument that their own members feel differently), and it's done well for itself. The Internet Association would do good to follow that lead.

So while I think that this organization is likely to be very helpful in various fights to protect the open internet, I'm a bit disappointed that the state of politics today means that something like this is even needed. And, as always, I worry about large industry players working towards efforts to maintain their position, rather than supporting actual innovation. We've certainly seen large companies who were once innovative later turn around and fight against disruption and defend the status quo. Hopefully that's not what will happen with the Internet Association. Beckerman appears to have a good grasp on the issues, so I'm encouraged by the idea that there will be an organization like this in DC, focused exclusively on internet-related issues, even as I'm disappointed that it's necessary.

One bit of advice, since I know many folks here will automatically be allergic to the idea of any sort of new DC-based trade group, even if it's likely to be fighting against groups that seek to harm the open internet: one way to hopefully avoid a bad result is to engage with this new group. Help them continue to fight the good fight by working with them, rather than automatically dismissing them. Beckerman definitely seems interested in engaging people well beyond just the companies that are members of the association (which, as I understand it, is looking for additional members), and hopefully the more he engages with people who have a personal interest in an open internet, the more he'll be able to help.

Time will tell whether this initiative by "the large Internet companies" is genuine or has hidden agendas.

Posted by samzenpus on Monday July 30, @12:32PMfrom the lost-cause dept.

jfruh writes "One of the arguments against the now-dormant SOPA legislation was that, in addition to eroding Internet freedom, it would also be ineffective in stopping music piracy. Well, according to a leaked report, the RIAA agrees with the latter argument. The proposed laws would 'not likely to have been an effective tool for music,' according to the report. Another interesting revelation is that, despite the buzz and outrage over P2P sharing, most digital music piracy takes place via sneakernet, with music moving among young people on hard drives and ripped CDs."

Yeah I saw that one too, why can't "tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" matter OUTSIDE expensive court rooms? What's the deal with blatant lies carrying the day?

Beats me. I don't really understand the nuances between US laws, politics and the apparent tolerance/sanction of what sometimes (to me) looks like unchecked corporate corruption. But then I do not live in the US and am relatively ignorant of the US way of life and its legal system. For example, I still can't understand how the heck the Cyber Security bill can have a gun amendment tucked away inside of it (per the video above). Amazing. Who knows? Maybe it's all part of a cunning psychological/marketing plan that American citizens are being exposed to - to desensitize them preparatory to being walked all over. If so, then is it working?

Let Your Senator Know Right Now That You Are Watching If They'll Vote To Protect Privacyfrom the speak-up dept

On Friday, we mentioned that this week is the week in which the Senate will wrangle over the new Cybersecurity bill. The current bill has some privacy safeguards, but not nearly enough. Senators Al Franken and Rand Paul have put together an amendment to strengthen the privacy safeguards even more -- and over the weekend, Senator Chuck Schumer agreed to co-sponsor the Franken/Paul amendment after talking to various folks in the tech industry and the civil liberties community. That adds more weight to the amendment. Unfortunately, Senators John McCain and Kay Bailey Huchison and a few others, who have been carrying water for the NSA throughout this fight, are looking to move the bill very far in the other direction, wiping out tons of privacy protections. It's really shameful.

Either way, this is the week to let your Senator know how you feel about all of this (and if you're a constituent of McCain or Huchison, please ask why they're so against protecting the privacy of the American public). The American Library Association has kindly set up a simple one-click tool to call your Senator and let them know how you feel.

The EFF has a page with some more info as well, noting that it's basically too late to email your Senators, so please call. If you want some more info, check out Fred Wilson's analysis of the situation, which matches almost exactly with mine. We still have not been given a compelling reason why any such legislation is needed. We keep hearing scare stories about mushroom clouds and planes falling from the sky if information can't be shared. But... what no one has done yet is explain which existing regulations block the necessary sharing of information. If they did that, we could look at fixing those laws. Instead, we're just told scare stories and given a massive 211-page bill that wipes out all sorts of previous laws, and adds all sorts of other things to the law. Given the length of the bill, it's quite likely there are some awful "easter eggs" in there that we'll only discover years down the road.

That said, if the bill is going to pass, it would be much better if it had very strong privacy protections in it, and the Franken/Paul amendment go a long way towards putting such protections in. The McCain/Huchison proposal do the opposite, and basically seek to take away privacy protections, while giving the NSA much more ability to access your data. Don't let the Senate trample your privacy rights. Go ahead and use the ALA's tool to contact your Senator today.

Add Argentina To The List Of Countries Looking To Censor The Internet (For The Children, Of Course)from the growing-list dept

We've noted that both Russia and China recently pushed for even more internet censorship, and both did so while claiming that it was really to "protect the children." Of course, lots of other countries are following suit. For example, Argentina is now considering a bill that appears to created a blacklist of websites that ISPs must block. Once again, this is done "for the children," as the list is supposed to include sites dealing with child porn. The problem, of course, is that such lists rarely seem to stick to just child porn -- and with little oversight, the over-blocking and over-filtering of legitimate content becomes way too easy. In the meantime, we're still at a loss as to how censorship is a better solution than actually going after those responsible if they're posting illegal content.

Iran, Russia, China, Argentina, etc. - those countries with historically the sorts of repressive regimes that you would probably expect this of. But I think that Australia and New Zealand - not repressive at all really (or at least, not yet anyway) are in the list too - with the justification for child porn censorship and scanning of your email accounts for same.

Bit by bit, inch by inch.

One of the comments to the above post: (my emphasis)

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12. Anonymous Coward, Jul 30th, 2012 @ 11:33pmnone of the countries that are going down this road are doing so for any reasons other than to invade privacy and take away freedoms. they are in the main more like dictatorships than anything but supposed democratic countries like the USA and UK are jumping on the band wagon, whilst condemning those other countries of course. the way things are going, the internet as we know it is going to stop completely, then, as far as ordinary people are concerned, we will only be able to access emails which will be checked first for 'illicit' content and sites that the individual governments allow, the rest of the internet being blocked completely. think back to what started all this censorship and put the blame squarely where it belongs, at the door of the entertainment industries.

After reading a short bit of that article, I had to go outside for a cigarette because I was about to explode in a furious rage of 140 dB profanity... and it's 2 am here...

To say that I have nothing but contempt for the EU bureaucrats would be kind. Overly kind. The EU is an unelected bunch of petty dictators. I hope they rot in hell. When Greece had near 20% of its employment in the government sector while they were sucking the c***s of foreign (EU) bankers, is it any wonder that they're bankrupt? Leave that crap for the Europeans. As a Canadian I don't want anything to do with it. At least the Icelanders had the balls to kick out the bankers and charge them and their fellow criminal conspirators in government. The EU technocracy disgusts me.

3) Then help us enlist others by using these links or forwarding this email to share info about this urgent campaign:[fb] If you're already on Facebook, click here to share with your friends.[fb] If you're already on Twitter, click here to tweet about the campaign: Tweet

We can win this one.

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You guys were amazing throughout this fight: Demand Progress members sent 500,000 emails to the Senate and made thousands of phone calls in opposition to the bill.

Countless other activists took up this fight too -- groups like the ACLU, EFF, Center for Democracy and Technology, Fight for the Future, and Free Press.

Just as important was the coalition of senators working on the inside to stand up for our rights:

There's a newly empowered corps of senators who've made it clear that they'll stand strong when the government threatens our privacy -- people like Ron Wyden (OR), Al Franken (MN), and Bernie Sanders (VT).